Zweiundachtzig - Part 3
“No, no, that’s not how it went at all. The media likes making it seem that I was the victim. But both Moira and I were pissing drunk and it was entirely both our faults.”
“So the re-purposing of the fence outside the Mayfair wasn’t all the MacTaggart heirs fault?” Erik asks as he wanders over to the couch with two drinks in hand.
“It was at the very least my idea,” Charles states proudly as Erik shakes his head and hands him a drink.
Charles is in his chair not entirely paying attention to the chess board. The day had gone by in a flurry of phone calls and stolen kisses. A repairman had come by at lunch to fix the freezer which had apparently blown a coil or something like that. Erik had been too focused on the way that Charles rolled himself back and forth in restless increments causing the metal of his chair to hum across Erik’s senses, to really pay attention to the repairman.
The freezer had been fixed, the repairman cleared out and they’d made pasta, eating hurriedly before retiring to Charles’ study. Erik’s fingers play over the pieces on the board, they’re marble with metal details and when he’s feeling confident he’ll slide one across the board without his hands just to make Charles beam at him.
They hadn’t gotten farther than kissing. Which while Erik wasn’t complaining, he is curious about the sudden hesitation that rolls up his spine every time his hands start to wander. He’s still uncomfortable with the idea of Charles in his head but he can’t deny it’s brilliant knowing what the other man is feeling.
“You’re thinking very hard,” Charles says causing Erik to flicker his eyes from the board to the other man.
“You’re going to check me in three moves,” Erik says.
“You knew that five moves ago. You don’t think that hard about chess.” Charles smiles over his drink.
He leans back against the couch, taking a more relaxed position and leaving the board alone. “I was wondering if we were going to talk.”
“About the kissing?” Charles appraises and Erik nods.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
That’s the first time anyone asked him that question. He hated talking things out, he never had the right words or the right feelings. What was there to talk about? He likes Charles and Charles liked him. They’d figure it out. But... But the question is there.
“You shy away if I try to touch you. Why?” It sounds too blunt and Erik bites the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t want to imply that he thinks Charles doesn’t want him to touch him. That was why it was confusing. He’s responsive to being kissed, but when Erik’s hand strays down. Ah, down.
“It’s the chair, isn’t it?” Erik asks before his head is filled with a crush of emotion about pity and poor thing and can he even get it up?
Erik gasps as Charles apologizes and his hands are on Erik, sliding his drink out of his fingers. “I’m so sorry! I... You’re just so sensitive! I really didn’t meant to-”
“I know,” Erik interrupts. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I just wish I’d have more warning.”
Charles hands slide up the back of Erik’s neck, fingers tangling in his hair and Erik can feel him sorting out his emotions. Smoothing them down so he didn’t project so suddenly and with such force. Slowly he leans down until they’re pressed forehead to forehead. Erik can see faces, flickering one after another. Women in bars and men at gala’s. All looking at Charles with the same pity that Erik despises. He lets out a shuddering breath and tips his head so he can nuzzle Charles’ ear. It prompts a squeak from the other man, making Erik chuckle.
He’d read what happened. Why Charles had ended up in the chair. A sentence on a web page that had made Erik’s mouth go dry. “Viciously beaten at the age of twenty-two, the attack left Charles Xavier a paraplegic after three months in a coma.” The article had gone on then to detail what a survivor he was and his contribution to the sciences. He won’t forget the way Charles looked at Alex, curled up in Sean’s bed. The sheer and utter relief that had been on his face. ...it could have been so much worse.
“You can imagine I haven’t had much of a... well...” Charles starts. “A sex life since the incident.”
Erik nods. That makes sense. It would be relearning your body all over again, which had been a complicated enough process during puberty. He doesn’t want to think about having to do it again. But still, this is Charles,“I can’t imagine you’d want for partners. Wheelchair or not.”
“You, sir, are giving me quite a lot of credit,” Charles says dryly but his fingers are dragging through the hair on the nape of Erik’s neck making him squirm closer.
“You’re telling me there wasn’t an intellectual brave enough to try and get under your cardigan?” Erik asks just to make Charles laugh.
“Well, Tony Stark propositioned me once, but I think that’s just how he operates so I wasn’t terribly flattered. Too many people are put off by the whole mechanics of it. I mean, mobility is a rather necessary step to sex that most people take for granted until a certain situation arises.” The answer is given in Charles’ lecturing voice, which is what he uses when he wants to put distance between himself and whatever he’s talking about.
“And has that situation risen?” Erik feels a little guilty for pushing but in his defense he wasn’t thinking about sex with Charles until that morning and he’d really love to know exactly what he can and cannot get away with as soon as possible.
He gets a swat on his shoulder along with, “That was terrible Erik.” But Charles is smiling as he rolls his eyes. “Everything rises just fine thank you. I just well, take some time to warm up.”
Oh, that is exceptionally fine. Erik likes foreplay. He’s had too many quickies over the course of his life. The last few encounters he’d drawn out as long as he could get away with. For a moment he wonders just how long Charles will indulge him for. Maybe what he needs to do is to stop over thinking this and enjoy it while he can. Perhaps if he just held onto that then the crippling feelings that cause him to wander strange mansions at night would ebb.
For a moment when he pulls back Charles looks confused, concerned but Erik kissed him again and feels that fade to nothing, to acceptance, to Charles tugging Erik forward by his shoulder until he almost overbalances him off the couch.
Erik breaks the kiss laughing while Charles is trying to apologize but Erik kisses him until he stops.
“We should... I mean... If you want to... I...” Charles is breathless and all Erik can read off him is a tumble of flesh and kisses and Erik’s wide warm palm and please.
“Bedroom?” Erik asks but Charles is already nodding his head and dragging him out of the study.
Charles’ bedroom is closest, on the main floor, down the hall from the kitchen in what used to be the rooms for the staff. There had been some talk of putting in an elevator but Charles was Charles and he explained that this had been the easiest solution. Besides, Erik liked Charles’ rooms, they were a normal size.
They keep stopping to kiss, Erik doesn’t realize that he’s been using his powers to keep guiding Charles. Not until the wheelchair bumps against the side of the bed and Charles makes a questioning noise in the back of his throat.
He’s wrecked when they break the kiss, though Erik imagines he must be looking along the same lines. Charles is blushing pink while his eyes have darkened and the way he looks up at Erik through those eyelashes of his makes him want to take this man apart and never give him back.
“This is where the difficulties usually start,” Charles pants breathlessly.
“I don’t see any difficulties,” Erik remarks and he leans forward to capture Charles mouth again.
He’s seen Charles get in and out of bed. It’s not an easy process certainly but there are two of them and they’ve got three good arms between them. Maybe if it wasn’t Charles then he’d stand there wondering what to do. But it’s remarkably easy to slide his good arm around Charles’ waist and gently pull him onto the bed in a mimicry of the motion Charles does to get himself out of his chair. Charles lets out a soft ‘oh’ against Erik’s lips before he looks down.
“See?” Erik nuzzles the side of Charles face, leaving a kiss on his temple. “Unless there’s a ‘no manhandling’ rule I don’t know about.”
“No.” Charles starts as Erik occupies himself with trying to get his hands under that cardigan. “Oh! I mean, there’s no rule. Ah, feel free.”
There’s a few moments of adjusting, of dragging Charles the rest of the way onto the bed, hindered by the fact that Erik really doesn’t want to stop kissing or touching. They have to move so he’s not putting all his weight on his cast because, ow. Then again because he wants that stupid cardigan off.
Until finally he’s got himself stretched quite nicely against the entire length of Charles who is down to his undershirt that Erik has halfway to unbuttoned. He’s working on leaving a rather impressive mark on Charles’ collarbone while the other man writhes, sliding his hands up Erik’s t-shirt, kneading his back and making little soft brilliant noises that Erik thinks if he could, he’d be quite satisfied to hear the rest of his life.
Charles growls and tugs him up, he likes kissing, he likes dragging his fingers through Erik’s hair until it’s messy. Erik loves feeling the thrill come off of Charles, the way it wraps around him like it’s something tangible.
Charles makes a muffled noise against his lips and gasps, “Pants.”
“What about them?” Erik murmurs, he’s a bit occupied with the slant of Charles jaw to immediately decipher one word sentences.
“They are bloody in the way!” Charles snaps and Erik starts laughing because he’s never heard that edge of desperation in Charles voice before and it’s amazing.
He ignores the grumbling and the tugging on his shoulders as he slides down Charles’ body, undoing the rest of his buttons as he went. He gets his belt off with a flick of his wrist, sending it sliding off the bed by the buckle. Charles’ button fly jeans end up proving too tantalizing to not take his time with, fingers teasing the bulge hidden beneath them as he works them open one by one. By the time he’s got them undone Charles is whimpering with one arm thrown over his eyes.
Erik slides them down, swallowing as he takes in the sight of freckles on pale hips and his mouth is on the curve of them before he really thinks about it. Charles is back to making brilliant noises while Erik noses his belly, taking in the scent of him as he works jeans and the most ridiculous red boxer shorts down just enough to expose Charles’ cock.
He’s circumcised, half hard, and Erik casts his gaze up the length of him before he slides his hand up Charles’ side in a obvious tease. He waits the ten seconds it takes for Charles to lift his arm to growl at him before he dips his head and takes Charles into his mouth.
Charles twists under him as best as he can, as every expletive the man has ever come across ring out in the bedroom. It’s been awhile since he’s given anyone a blow job, and this is far from experimenting in Austria over a summer. Charles moans low in the back of his throat as Erik tries curving his tongue this way and that around his shaft.
You’re so easy, Erik thinks and gets an indignant huff as his answer before slender fingers brush through his hair.
“Oh, I can show you easy, Mr. Sensitive,” Charles murmurs and Erik only has a moment to wonder exactly what he means when the first image blooms in his mind.
Charles is showing him what he sees, Erik hair shaggy and messy from where its been tugged on. The blush on his cheeks along with the red mark on the side of his neck from kissing in the study. His mouth stretched around Charles’ shaft and the wide warm weight of his palm spread across Charles’ stomach. Tangled up in it is an undercurrent of fierce pride. The feeling of this, this, this is mine. No one had ever wanted, will ever want Erik as much as Charles does now.
Erik moans, long and muffled by Charles in his mouth as that feeling seems to strike him as electric. It slides right down his spine and his dick aches with the thought of it. He whimpers and is rutting against the mattress before he knows it. That had to be cheating, they were going to have to establish ground rules for this sort of thing because now he was entertaining hazy thoughts of himself fucking Charles. Sprawled across him every inch pressed together, because Charles loves the pressure, the feeling of being pinned.
Oh, that was it. Erik sucks, his cheeks hollowing and gives as good as he gets. He could ride Charles. The gorgeous picture he’d make straddling his hips, fucking himself on his dick, using him to get off. Charles is panting now, half formed words tumbling from his lips as Erik sucks him and shows him just what a lifetime of reading can do to sharpen an imagination.
The things he’d do to him. Imagine the things he could do when he gets the cast taken off, in a bigger bed, against a wall or in the study. What he could do with a pair of iron or nickle bracelets. He thinks he’ll forever be proud that this was the thought that gets Charles off. The image of dark metal in beautiful curves around pale wrists and how easily they’d slide up the sheets.
Charles comes with a shout and Erik doesn’t move because he wants to taste this, salty and bitter and Charles. Also because it’s all he can do to hang on because apparently telepaths can project their orgasms. It’s entirely not fair that he ends up shaking, out of breath, forehead pressed to Charles hip as the room spins while he’s still hard in his pants.
Then Charles is yanking him up and licking his own flavor out of Erik’s mouth and that is just filthy while he yanks open Erik’s fly. Charles breaks the kiss just as his hand slides into Erik’s jeans and he’s not wearing anything underneath them because he changed too quickly... The sensation of Charles realizing that as he works Erik’s dick hurriedly is almost enough to do him in. But Charles has to take it one step further and bite down hard where Erik’s neck meets his shoulder and he will swear to God that he never made whatever noise he makes as he comes, spilling over Charles’ fist.
Erik comes back to himself in degrees, he’s fallen on Charles, his cast resting on the other man’s chest. There’s a warm hum of bliss surrounding him while Charles smooths down his hair with his clean hand.
“Fuck,” he blurts because that was... they didn’t even get their pants off.
Charles makes a noise of agreement and lets Erik lay on him until he starts tutting about washcloths and all the work he was supposed to be doing after dinner. Erik loves it.
oOo
Of course all that love doesn’t keep Erik from panicking an hour later. It’s a phone call that does it. Charles is organizing a schedule which Erik is secretly hating because it has half a dozen cities on it that aren’t New York or anywhere close to where he wants Charles to be. Erik thinks he’s talking to Moira or someone that’s head of some foundation. He’s flipping a page, an autobiography of some Irish something or another, when he hears Charles say, “Is it going to be televised?”
Right, of course, he’d seen Charles on TV before. He just wasn’t expecting the sinking feeling of apprehension that cropped up this time around. He hadn’t thought about it. Charles was in the media’s eye and if he... What? Dated him? Screwed him? They would... They would find out. For a moment he thinks of the questions they could ask him. The pictures they could dig up and... Logan is carrying him out of the courthouse because he’s having a panic attack. They asked him so many questions and their voices sounded so wrong, like he was wrong, like everything was wrong.
“Erik?” He almost drops the book when Charles says his name.
Charles is concerned, his brow furrowed as he hangs up the phone. Erik wonders just how much of that he was projecting. Enough by the look of it. Charles takes a deep breath and toys with the pen on his desk before he tries to venture forth, “Do you want to talk about it?”
A dozen alarm bells in Erik’s head go off and he wishes he could tell Charles that it wasn’t his fault. It was all Erik, it was always going to be Erik. He thinks he says, “Nicht jetzt.”
Then he’s up, running as best he can out of the library and into the hall before Charles can read him or he can project or... Or anything.
oOo
An hour later Erik’s outside. He’d dragged his coat on and started walking. The estate is huge, he figured he could get lost in it for awhile. But now it’s cold, and the sun went down ages ago and he’s not closer to figuring himself out then he was when he fled the library.
Fled, he rolls his eyes and sits against the huge wrought iron gates at the front of the estate. He followed their humming to the edge of the property while he smoked the one cigarette he’d found in his pocket, it’s soothing as he crouches in the driveway. He ran. He always runs. Charles must be so confused. Erik lets out a noisy breath and goes over the pros again of asking Charles to take him home so suddenly after... Well... God, he was an idiot and an asshole. He’s so mired in working up a really good self loathing that he almost doesn’t hear his cell phone.
Raven had changed all his ring tones and hers is some annoying pop song thing. He should throw it into the woods instead of answering but he thinks she has him conditioned.
“What?” He snaps after he swipes the button.
Raven sighs noisily into the phone before she asks, “Where are you?”
“In Westchester, where you told me to go,” he sighs back and he knows she’s rolling her eyes.
“Where on the estate, you jerk bomb? I just had the weirdest conversation with Charles.”
Erik side eyes the electric lanterns that hang on either side of the gate. “I’m out at the front gate.”
“At ten ‘o clock at night? In the middle of winter?”
“I have a coat. What conversation?”
Raven snorts, “The weird rambly one where I think you two slept together but Charles called it something ridiculous that he learned at Oxford instead of using his grown up words. ‘But now he’s gone off after storming out of the... No, really it wasn’t storming, forget I said storming.’ What soap opera shit is going on with you two!?”
“All of it,” Erik frowns, he should have known Charles would have called her.
“Great, how about you tell me who’s pregnant and when the evil twin is gonna show up then?”
“I slept with your brother,” Erik says because he’s not good with slang and it’s a place to start.
“Gathered that. Didn’t need to know that, but gathered it.”
“I think I’m in love with your brother.”
The silence over the other end of the phone cannot be promising. It’s finally resolved in a long drawn out, “Fuck! Erik! I need pants for this conversation.”
Erik frowns over the sound of rustling, “Why don’t you have pants on?”
“Oh, finally hooked up with that Russian from Gino’s. Worth the wait!”
Erik cringes like he always does when Raven decides to share details from her conquests. Usually he and Hank end up ducking out to anywhere but where she was at the moment.
“I know you’re making that face. He has a tail, don’t judge me. You slept with my brother, that’s way worse.” There’s a clunk and the sound of something being dragged before Raven clears her throat. “Okay, you slept with Charles and maybe you love him. Why the hell are you half a mile away from the house then?”
“It’s complicated,” Erik says and then adds, “Wichtig.”
“Complicated and... important.” He hears Raven pick out the word from the handful he’d been teaching her. “Did he do something dumb? Cause he does that. He just gets in the moment and-”
“No!” Erik cuts her off before she can really start. He knows, he knows how Charles is. How he gets, so excited and he’s not really sure... “It’s not him. It’s me. I just... I don’t know if I can be what he wants.”
“Did you ask him what he wanted?”
“Of course not,” Erik smiles and listens to Raven make a disgusted noise at him.
“You men. If you two don’t want to date you don’t have to but you have to tell that to him, not me. I don’t count. But I’m getting that you want to date or something. Shit, Erik it’s hard enough to read you when I can see you.”
“I’m sorry,” Erik breathes as she grumbles on the other end of the phone.
“You just...” Raven trails off before he hears her take a breath and the next questions she asks is careful, “Erik. Is this about the facility?”
The gates behind him shake and he hears the connection turn to static before he’s fumbling the phone and trying to drag his powers under control before he loses the call. He can hear Raven shouting his name through the static as he counts backwards until finally he swallows. “I’m here. I- Sorry.”
“Jesus, hold your shit together. I didn’t mean... Fuck.”
“You know?” He asks because, shit. He knew she figured out he was a mutant but it had been fine and he’d thought that was enough. But this is...
“Did you really think Hank was going to let anyone move into the studio without a background check? Some weird stuff came up and then Hank did a better check after you said that stuff about where you grew up and it all sort of just fit. We figured you didn’t want to talk about and shit, it’s not the sort of thing you bring up over falafel.”
“You didn’t want to upset me?” Erik asks and he’s not sure if he should be upset or not. He’s still not sure where the line was for friends.
“Of course not! You’re my friend, you dick!” Or maybe he’s already crossed it. “I mean sure, you were hiding something but we figured it wasn’t that you were a serial killer or something. It all sort of made a lot of sense when we had to take you to the hospital.”
Shit, he’s still embarrassed by that. Everyone had been in the car. Wait. “So everyone knows?”
“Well Hank found out and told me and we told Sean because he has no tact at all. Alex might know now. We didn’t tell Charles.”
Erik blinks at that because, well, Raven told Charles everything. “You didn’t tell Charles?”
“It’s complicated. You know he gets and I didn’t want him to get all excited and twenty question you because he’s the densest telepath ever. But then you two started making eyes at each other and we just all figured that, well, it was something you should tell him.”
Which was where the problem lay. Erik bites the inside of his cheek as he thinks it over, trying to find the right words. “Raven, I’ve never told anybody.”
“What?” Her surprise is audible and it makes him frown.
“I’ve never told anybody! I... People have guessed, or suspected and they leave it alone, but I’ve never... I’ve never just gone up to someone and told them that I grew up in a...” He curls in on himself, pressing against the gate and swallowing. He can’t say it. He can’t even say the word, his mouth is tinny tasting and he doesn’t want Raven to know. He doesn’t want her to think he’s weak.
“Do you want to tell Charles?” Raven whispers and Erik lets out the breath he was holding.
“I...” What the hell does he want? He tries to untangle the German in his head and remember that this is Raven. She’s not a doctor or... “I don’t want a reporter to tell him. I don’t want some stranger showing him pictures.”
“Okay, then if this is all wichtig, I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, is he worth it?”
Schisse. Son of a... Erik closes his eyes, “If I answer this question wrong are you going to kick the shit out of me?”
“If you decide to beat around the bush and end up dragging this out before you break his heart I’m going to kick the shit out of you.”
“I don’t want to break his heart.”
“Well, that’s something. Erik, what is literally the worst that could happen? He thinks you’re a lost puppy and wants to take care of you all the time?”
The image is too ridiculous to not laugh at, “I’m not a puppy.”
“No, you aren’t. You are grown ass man that makes more on one job than some people do in a year. Do you think that’s gonna change if you tell him that you had a shitty childhood?” Raven huffs, that noise she makes when he’s being absolutely unreasonable and the knot in his chest starts to unravel.
“No?” He ventures because Kitty was right, Charles was intelligent and Raven had a point.
“No,” Raven assures. “If you think you love him and you think he’s worth it then don’t you think you should figure out why you’re freezing your ass off when you could be, I can’t believe I’m saying this, in bed with him?”
He stares at his breath as it condenses out in front of him and peers up the driveway where the manor was. “You are making sense.”
“Damn right, I am.”
oOo
Charles is in bed when he finally gets back to the manor. He lets himself in the back door following the only light in the hall down to Charles’ door. The man is asleep with a book on his chest and those ridiculous glasses askew on his nose. Erik sighs, leaving his coat hanging behind the door before he rescues the book from falling. He’s just teasing the glasses off of Charles’ face with all the finesse of a safe cracker when blue eyes flutter open and Erik swallows. He’s prepared to be yelled at, or have questions launched at him. So he’s a bit surprised when Charles just pushes himself up and hugs him saying something that Erik doesn’t quite catch but the sudden wave of sorry sorry don’t go pretty much fills him in.
He lets the book slide to the comforter as he drags Charles into a proper hug, leaning forward to leave a kiss on Charles’ temple. “It’s not your fault. I’m an asshole.”
“We don’t have to talk,” Charles says and that means everything.
Everything.
“Yes, we do.” Erik breathes, “But not now, tomorrow.”
Charles nods, greedy, pulling him into bed until Erik slides his cold hands under his t-shirt and makes him shriek.
oOo
Erik wakes up when murky light is seeping in through the windows. Charles is curled up in the blankets, tucked against his side. It’s comfortable. Nice. He hasn’t had anyone in his bed that he’s cared about since Kitty. Kitty who would walk through his wall at night and burrow under the covers with him while he told her about the Hardy Boys or Robinson Crusoe. Fuck, he was supposed to call her. Instead he went and had what she is probably going to call his ‘midlife crisis’. Fuck.
Carefully he untangles himself from the blankets, watching as Charles claims his pillows in his sleep like some sort of sea monster. He showers, dragging on his sweats and an MIT sweatshirt that he’d commandeered from Hank that was two sizes too big. Then he makes his way to the kitchen where after a good hunt finds everything he needs to make pancakes.
Charles doesn’t make an appearance until there’s tea, which is set out for him wordlessly along with a stack of pancakes. His hair is a mess and Erik knows from experience that he won’t be sentient until he’s at least halfway through breakfast since he doesn’t have Raven prodding him. Erik eats quietly, listening intently when Charles starts talking, first words and then entire sentences. He seems to be trying to carry on as usual and a part of Erik wants so badly to just let it be. To pretend that nothing happened, that he didn’t have what was probably a panic attack and go haring off half a mile across the grounds because he didn’t want Charles to hear him freaking out.
Instead he waits until Charles finishes his pancakes, while he’s making himself another cup of milky tea, to say, “I want to show you something.”
Charles is curious but quiet as he nods, letting Erik carry his tea with him down the hall to his private study so he can follow. Charles is projecting, excitement and curiosity and nervousness as Erik turns to the shelves that run along the wall behind his desk. He’d spotted the book when Charles had first given him the tour and then studiously pretended he hadn’t. He slides the volume out, the weight as familiar as when Kitty had first brought it home out of sheer morbid curiosity. The Lost Children, Germany’s Facilities for the ‘Gifted’. They had laughed at the title at first, until they had thought about parents that didn’t know they were still alive and couldn’t be found.
He flips it open, paging quickly through the text until he gets to the shiny pictures sandwiched in the middle. He finds what he’s looking for rather quickly, the page had been torn out of their copy and stuck to the refrigerator. The photo is of a group of young children in a playroom but only one of them is staring at the camera, frowning like it’s personally offended him. The child can’t be more than four, wearing overalls and clutching, rather possessively, a stuffed lamb.
Erik turns the book to face Charles who gives it a glance before looking up at Erik and taking it. Erik points to the boy once Charles has the book settled in his lap.
“That’s me,” he says and part of him doesn’t think it should be so easy to say those words.
Charles is quiet before a soft ‘oh’ leaves his lips and Erik waits for something to project. The shock or disgust or the worst case scenario. Instead it’s a buzz of curiosity and something that Erik can’t name. Something warm, something pleased.
“This explains why you’ve never heard of Sesame Street.”
Erik’s not sure if he wants to kiss the man or strangle him. “Really, Charles?”
He gets a smile and Charles catches him by the wrist to tug him onto the couch by him as he looks at the picture. “This was what you didn’t want me to find out? I mean sometimes you just flash secret! but I couldn’t figure out why.”
“I flash?” Erik frowns as Charles waves his hand at him in dismissal.
“You know what I mean. May I ask how long you were there?”
“Twelve years, I was seized from a hospital after I was born.”
“Genetic profiling,” Charles nods. “Back when it was still legal to do it without the parents permission. They probably told your parents that you would spontaneously light on fire or kill people with a touch.”
“Well, I might have,” Erik shrugs, because his powers hadn’t started developing until he was six and that had resulted in everyone using plastic utensils for a couple of years.
“Rubbish,” Charles frowns as he flips through the pictures. “Is that the only photo of you? You’re quite adorable, you know.”
Erik rubs his hand over his face, “Kitty probably has some more.”
“Kitty?” Charles asks and Erik swallows.
“She was in the facility with me. I lived with her when we got out. She’s married now, lives in Oslo and writes terrible romance novels.”
Charles make a pleased noise in the back of his throat and then lifts his head, a sparkle in his blue eyes, “Am I allowed to ask more questions?”
Erik takes a deep breath, then slides down onto the couch, “I doubt anyone could stop you from asking questions, Charles.”
Charles gives him a look like he’s never been more insulted in his life and the look is so endearing Erik thinks it in itself might answer the question of if this is worth it.
“Well, I didn’t want to be impertinent as this is quite a large-”
“You’re being impertinent right now, Charles,” Erik frowns and closes his eyes in preparation for the book being thrown at him.
But Charles is making grumbling noise as he flips pages. “Where was the picture taken? You looked quite cranky.”
“I had just come from the medical wing. All the children had to get checked out everyday at their designated times.”
“And that explains why you were largely sedated when I first met you.”
“The metal feels wrong,” Erik mutters and he hates saying it because it makes him sound crazy but Charles just hums.
“It might be some sort of sense memory or some way in which the metal is processed specifically for hospitals.”
“All I know is I don’t like it,” Erik frowns. He doesn’t and for twelve years he had to sit in a room with the metal screaming and try to focus enough to answer questions.
“Erik?” Charles is looking at him and then his eyes drift lower. “How are you going to get your cast taken off? Please don’t tell me you’re going to do it yourself.”
His concern is palpable in the air and Erik stretches, his sweatshirt riding up. “I was going to see if I could get Hank to do it.”
“He wouldn’t,” Charles smirks, sure of himself.
“He would if I told him I’d let Sean do it instead.”
“You’re terrible,” Charles is frowning and shaking his head
Slowly Erik reaches out and slides his fingers through Charles’ hair, smiling when the man hums and leans into the touch. “You know, I was expecting you to have more of a reaction to this.”
“Hmm?” Charles tilts his head as he peers at the book in his lap. “Oh Erik, it’s far to early to have a grand reaction to anything. Also, I must say I was expecting something much worse with the way you ran off last night.”
“I did not run off,” Erik mutters.
“You did,” Charles’ tone brooks no argument.
He did. Erik sighs and leans forward, tugging Charles towards him with his powers so he can rest his head on his shoulder. Charles is all curiosity and... and gratefulness. Grateful that Erik gave him this.
“Can we go back to bed?” Erik mumbles and feels Charles laugh more than he hears it.
“Yes, always. But you have to promise to wake me up so I can finish what I actually came out here for.”
“Working,” Erik sighs but he feels... better. Lighter. He didn’t lose Charles. The man has made no indication that Erik needs his pity or his charity or... Erik loses his train of thought when Charles turns and kisses him.
“Yes, working. You know Harvard has offered me a rather nice teaching position. Online classes. I’d be working from home and I wouldn’t be traveling all over the place all year round. I have to say the offer was tempting before I met you but now it’s almost irresistible.”
Erik feels himself freeze and the slight flutter of well, he thinks it’s hope.
“I didn’t want to be presumptuous,” Charles continues, “I mean, I’ve only known you for a month or so and I wasn’t quite sure what you wanted out of this whole relationship. Frankly I was willing to take whatever I could-”
Erik shuts him up by kissing him and he doesn’t let up until the book falls out of Charles lap, onto the floor. They are obviously the two densest men on the planet and he’s sure once they get back to the studio they aren’t going to hear the end of it.
oOo
The party is small, only a dozen or so guests and Erik knows most of them. This is the only reason that he’s been enticed out of his workshop for the evening and into something that isn’t jeans and a t-shirt. Of course the last time there had been a gala at the manor he thinks all of the guests spilled into his workshop at least once anyway until he locked the door.
Erik spots Charles across the sitting room that people are filtering in and out of. He’s laughing, talking animatedly with a huge blond that Tony brought. As far as Erik recalls the party was for some sort of Harvard committee that Charles didn’t have to be on but someone asked him ‘so nicely’. Erik can’t entirely remember exactly which one. He thinks Charles explained it to him while they were in bed which is really unfair of the man to do. A server walks by and Erik plucks a glass of champagne from his tray as he nods. There’s a light dinner being set up outside, he’d been watching staff hang up fairy lights all day. Having staff is odd, but Ororo usually takes care of it. The housekeepers granddaughter is frighteningly efficient at organizing large groups of people.
He spots a familiar shade of blue and decides to stop ‘wall-flowering’ as Raven calls it. She’s dressed in white, her natural form contrasting stunningly. She claims that she’s getting to old to to pander to the media but Erik knows that the same night the press first snapped pictures of him with Charles they had also found out his sister was a mutant as well. It had been a debacle and Charles made tutting noises for months afterwards.
Erik lets her drag him onto the couch when he’s close enough to be reeled in. She’s got her feet in Hank’s lap while Alex and Sean argue over some horrific reality show while Hank just nods like he knows what they’re talking about.
Raven practically purrs when he lets her leans against him, she smells like soap and baking after spending three hours in the kitchen trying to make cinnamon rolls with Sean that morning. They all gravitated towards the manor once it was settled that Charles would be teaching. He’d complained that he could get an apartment in the city with them but Erik had already moved the giant canopied bed into Charles’ room and then his workshop had followed, being settled into a unused corner of the pool house.
Raven had followed, somehow Hank had come along with her and where Hank goes Alex goes. It was the beginning of summer when Erik helped Sean set up his kiln in the eastern courtyard. Then someone called ‘Darwin’ started showing up along with Angel and her quiet boyfriend and before they knew it there was a band practicing in the empty conservatory. It was when they had to drag in a bigger table for breakfast that Erik realized that it was rather silly to keep paying for the studio.
He’s got his eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the people around him. He still gets pitying looks now and then, but mostly from humans. The mutants look at him like he’s something else. Something better. He doesn’t know what to make of that. The first time he spoke to Charles about it the man just grinned and whispered something about hidden strength. He almost thinks he gets it. The facility fucked him up, sure, but he survived it. Somehow, he hung on long enough to get this.
“Darling, my assistant says I have a message from you?”
He opens his eyes and the corner of his mouth twitches up as Emma grins at him. She’s immaculate as ever, the only one of Charles’ old money friends that didn’t make sense to Erik. Not until he saw her drunk for the first time and that her icy facade was just that, a facade.
“I finished your commission this morning. It might still need adjustments but...”
“Oh stop being such a tease and get on with it already,” Emma huffs.
Erik laughs but untangles himself from Raven and stands, Emma prodding him down the low lit halls out to the pool house. Raven follows, and along the way they gather a Moira, a Pepper and a Natasha.
There’s a hush as he produces the black leather case from his safe and hands it to Emma who is practically bouncing. It’s a new case, with a stylized ‘M’ embossed onto it. Raven had ordered him business cards after the third event she’d attended wearing his jewelry. There had been too many people asking her questions. Then he’d made Charles cuff links along with a matching tie pin and he’d ended up having to get a separate cell phone for commissions.
There’s a chorus of gasps when Emma opens the box and her wide eyed look is worth all the bitching she had done about price and when she could have it. It’s a diamond choker, filigree with a cascade of dangling stones. The metal is antiqued, dark, so it will show if she decided to switch into diamond form. There are two matching bracelets, and the real show piece. The commission had been for jewelry to wear to a masquerade in London and the silver mask is crafted with the same delicate attention as the necklace and bracelets.
“Oh my God, Erik!” Emma gushes as Raven grins with unabashed pride and then insists that Emma tries it on.
He makes adjustments to the pieces, the soft subtle curving of his fingers ignored in the excitement of it all. The women are still cooing when Erik steps back towards the familiar hum of metal.
“I had wondered where all the ladies had gone off to,” Charles remarks as he slides his hand across the small of Erik’s back.
“Well, you know me and ladies,” Erik remarks dryly as he drags his fingers across the back of Charles’ neck.
Charles chuckles, the warmth of his amusement seeping into the room, curling around Erik like an embrace. He’s got two other commissions to start tomorrow while Charles leads an online lecture. Raven is going into the city for a weekend with the ‘Russian with a tail’. He’s sure Hank or Sean will set something on fire. Alex is going to bring his band over and before Erik knows it the fridge will be empty, like usual.
He’ll call Kitty tonight and tell her about the party, ask her how her pregnancy is doing. How Piotr is and the new job, what season they want to come out to the manor next year.
Charles hums against his fingers, “You know, we could just have Raven kick everyone out and go to bed early.”
Erik grins. Alles wird gut.